Chapter Three. Ember
CHAPTER THREE
Ember
I stare at Asad’s wide shoulders as he leaves the study. Even when the door closes behind him, I can’t remove my gaze from it.
Can’t stop myself from imagining freeing him of the gun he hides under his suit jacket and gifting him with a third eye right in the middle of his forehead.
Or driving a knife deep into his neck and severing his spinal cord, Predator-style. That’s my favorite vision, even though I don’t know how to handle either weapon. It’s just the dagger is more … personal.
God, I want to get up close and personal with my stepbrother.
Especially when it ends with blood coating both of us.
“Ember.”
I snatch my attention from the study door, shelve my mental musings of homicide, and look at my godfather.
The softening of his sharp, handsome features nearly unleashes the tight harness I have on my emotions.
I love Sam; he’s the only person in whose presence I would dare to close my eyes or turn my back.
But right now, with my father’s words—his edicts—still ringing in my ears, I don’t want softness.
I don’t want his pity. Because either might trigger something other than my rage.
And I need my rage.
If I’m going to survive, I need it.
“If you’re going to give me some excuse for why Marcus is a misogynistic asshole, don’t bother, Sam.”
I rise from the couch, and for a second, I sway, my head swimming with so much of …
everything. And none of it good. Rage—searing hot, roaring and racing like an out-of-control forest fire—swells within me, almost capsizing me in its powerful undertow.
Bracing myself, I curl the fingers of my left hand into a tight fist, digging my nails into the flesh of my palm.
I don’t stop until the first bite of pain radiates through my hand.
I press harder, making the pain flare hotter, brighter.
After several moments, I inhale, hold my breath, and release it.
Then, starting with my shoulders, I deliberately relax each muscle down to my toes.
The lie I tell myself: I’m unlovable.
The facts: My mother loved me, and if she’d had a choice, she wouldn’t have left me. Sam loves me, even if it’s just because I’m all that’s left of the woman he secretly worshipped—Kimberly Cross, his best friend’s wife and my mom.
The lie I tell myself: I don’t belong here. I’m unwanted.
The facts: I’m not just the last living person with Cross DNA running through their veins, but neither this fashion house nor empire would survive without me. I’m more than wanted; I’m needed.
I knock down the automatic negative thoughts one by one using the cognitive behavioral therapy tools taught to me by my therapist, as well as the relaxation techniques.
I’ve battled intermittent explosive disorder since I was eight years old.
After being diagnosed and entered into therapy at nine, I’ve learned coping skills and have managed my condition over the years, and my outbursts have lessened as I matured.
Shit, with my father and stepfamily, I’ve had plenty of opportunity and years to put those mechanisms into practice.
But right now, with my skin prickling like tongues of fire are lapping at it, my limbs tingling with painful pinpricks, my rib cage constricting around a heart running a hundred-yard dash …
Yeah, I’m afraid even the CBT method won’t be enough to prevent the imminent explosion.
“Ember.” His low yet soft voice ripples through me, somewhat soothing the savage beast crouching inside me. He crosses the room toward me. “Sweetheart.”
It’s that endearment, wrapped in a tenderness I so rarely hear, that accomplishes what my coping mechanisms couldn’t.
With a vicious fist squeezing my throat, I walk into his outstretched arms and lock my own around his tall, lean frame.
The scent of Eau Sauvage by Dior greets me, and I lean into the comfort of his embrace and familiarity.
Sam is my godfather. There isn’t a time in life when he hasn’t been there.
And unlike my father, he’s always been a safe space.
“He hated me,” I rasp against his chest, my gaze fixed on the far wall mounted with awards from the fashion industry over the years. They cover the surface, more than a few from the era of Marcus Cross.
My era.
“No, sweetheart. He didn’t hate you,” Sam murmurs against the top of my head. “He could never hate you, his daughter. On the contrary, he loved you.”
The caustic burst of laughter that escapes me razes my throat.
“How can you say that? I know he was your best friend, and it’s shitty to speak ill of the dead, but fuck that.
It’s just me and you, Sam. Marcus might’ve been a good friend to you, but he was a fucked-up father.
” I loose another laugh that’s just as scalpel sharp, just as painful.
“Not like I’m telling you something you don’t know. He hid me away, for God’s sake.”
It’s no surprise no one really knows of my existence, because Marcus orchestrated it that way.
Homeschooled by tutors until I left for college, my only freedom was when Mom took me outside the state or country on vacations.
She and Sam were my only friends, my constant companions.
Their love aided in shielding me from the reality of Marcus’s disappointment and shame in me and my gender—until it didn’t.
It wasn’t until I was older and he found a profitable use for me that he peripherally allowed me into the Cross world.
And even then, he still didn’t acknowledge me as his daughter.
“Yes, Marcus was … complicated.” When I snort, he leans back, cupping my shoulders and staring down at me. Sadness—at what? His friend’s death, or his behavior?—darkens his eyes.
“Okay, Sam. There’s nothing complicated about him thinking so fucking little of me he literally gave my inheritance away to a man who has no blood relation to him.
” My father sold me out because of his wife’s so-called good pussy.
There’s absolutely nothing “complicated” about a man thinking with his dick. Hell, that story’s as old as time.
“You still have thirty-four percent ownership of the company—”
“Which doesn’t mean shit.” I slash a hand through the air, cutting Sam off.
“Not when Asad owns forty-one percent, and his mother and brother own fifteen. Even if he didn’t have them to vote whatever way he decided, he is the fucking proxy for my thirty-four.
I own mine on paper only. He might as well own seventy-five percent of my family’s company.
” I laugh again. Longer and lower. “And you want to talk about Marcus loved me. That man couldn’t give two shits about me.
Not when I’m the only living Cross this side of the grave and he hands over my legacy to someone who got where he is because his ho-ass mama spread her legs for a bag.
I know this fucking business better than any person here—know it better than my own soul.
But I’m good enough to carry this goddamn house and family on my back, but not even to vote my own shares, make decisions regarding the company I’ve dedicated the last seven years? More, if we’re keeping it one hundred.”
Sam scrubs a hand down his face, suddenly appearing more haggard and tired.
“I get it, Em—”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“Marcus wasn’t an emotive man; he never has been, and that’s how I knew he loved your mother.
He went against his father’s wishes and married her.
Marcus lived for Nicholas’s approval until the day that old man died.
Hell, until the day your father died. But Kim?
He defied Nicholas to be with her, and the day you were born was the happiest day in his life other than when he married your mother. ”
“And he despised me for living when she gave him only me and no more sons.”
I take a step back, letting his hands fall from my shoulders, taking the warmth and solid, grounding strength with him.
I like it better that way. Pain and disappointment are the best teachers.
They’ve educated me fully that the only stable foundation that can never be shaken or snatched away is one laid brick by brick by yourself.
Anything else is fallible and fickle. Even one that appears the most stalwart and steadfast. Like Sam.
Like my mother.
“My birth might’ve been a good day for him, but as soon as he realized his wife birthed a daughter instead of a son, that joy started to dissipate.
And then when he found out his perfect princess had flaws, and required even more precious time, well, then I became a fucking parasite as well as a burden.
No, Sam. Don’t try and rewrite history in some pitying attempt to make me feel better.
I knew Marcus Cross better than most—even better than you since you only saw what he wanted you to, and I got to peer behind the curtain.
So excuse me if I respectfully say fuck all that you’re talking. ”
An array of emotion tramps across his features, but after several long moments, he bows his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.
I stare at the thick black hair liberally sprinkled with strands of gray and for a second wonder what my life would’ve been like if he would’ve been my father. Who I would’ve been.
But in the next instant, I eject the pointless thought. Wishes are relegated to fairy tales and silly princesses who really believe a man can change their luck for the better instead of fuck their existence up the ass.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my twenty-five years—li’l bitch, ugly-ass bitch, ho—but never silly.